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THE LOST @AMHR Wu « 
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AND 


DIFFICULTIES OF THE BIBLE AS TESTED 
BY THE LAWS OF EVIDENCE, 


BY 


Y..&: GHLEDS,-D oie 


PHILADELPHIA ; 
PRESBYTERIAN BOARD OF PUBLICATION 
AND SABBATH-SCHOOL WORK, 

No. 1334 CHESTNUT STREET 


COPYRIGHT, 1888, BY 
THE TRUSTEES OF THE 


PRESBYTERIAN BOARD OF PUBLICATION 
‘ AND SABBATH-SCHOOL WORK. 


ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. 


Westcott & THOMSON, 
Stereotypers and Electrotypers, Philada. 


SoME of the most pathetic cases of the spirit- 
ual unrest and skepticism of the day are found 
among the children of Christian parents. They 
have been brought up to believe the Bible, but 
under the influences that have met them as they 
have gone out from the old home into the world 
their early faith has been shaken, and not unfre- 
quently destroyed. To such as these, and, beyond 
these, to all who have come to believe that our 
age has passed beyond the Bible, it is hoped that 
the incidents and arguments of this little book may 


be of service. 


WasuHineTon, D. C., June, 1888. 


Digitized by the Internet Archive 
in 2022 with funding from 
Princeton Theological Seminary Library 


https://archive.org/details/lostfaithanddiffoOchil 


THE LOST FAITH. 


GEL. LOST - BAT et. 


LETTER I. 


My DEAR C 


me on the subject of your last letter. I appreciate 


: It is useless for you to write to 


your motives, but with me the question is settled. 
I have given up the beliefs of my childhood ; they 
had long been a burden to me, and the writings 
and lectures of Mr. 
heard him? Can he be fairly answered? I am 


did the rest. Have you 


not, indeed, as confident as he is that there is no 
personal God, though I do not believe it can be 
proved, and I entirely agree with him in abhor- 
ring and rejecting the doctrine of future suffering. 
This was the horrible nightmare of my childhood, 


and you cannot conceive the relief that the rejec- 
7 


8 THE LOST FAITH. 


tion of the doctrine has given me. I am frank to 
say, from my own experience and that of others, 
that this is the point that gives Mr. his hold 
on so many. The doctrine of endless suffering for 


the sins of this life is abhorrent to them, and they 
,welcome his views almost as a first truth of reason. 
This, at least, is my position. The existence of 
God cannot be proved, nor can any immortality 
for man except in the influence he may leave be- 
hind him. But a truce to this. Come to me soon 
if you are not afraid of my “infidelity,” and let 
us live over the days of our boyhood. Most of 
the dear old friends are gone; we are nearly alone, 
and I am not inclined to drop the last links of 
brighter, and perhaps better, days than these now 
upon us. Yours, truly, A 


My Dear A 
deeply. Yes, we are almost alone. Of all the 


: Your letter has moved me 


dear group that used to gather in the old school- 


THE LOST FAITH. g 


house, and play upon the common, and stroll along 
the river-banks in summer and skate upon its solid 
surface in winter, you and I are nearly all that 


remain. The Southern sea has poor H : 


W 
other name, I think) with Custer’s band in the 
and § 
their honors, and were buried with them, on the 
battlefield ; K 


The rest are scattered. The old homes are all 


, the leader of our sports, fell (under an- 


wild tragedy of Montana; B 


won 


lives a wreck in mind and body. 


changed ; the inmates are gone from them for ever. 

And you are changed. No recollections of the 
past that your letter has called up have impressed 
me more sadly than the change you speak of in 
yourself. You have lost the faith of your child- 
hood. It is true you do not speak of it as a loss: 
you think you have gained by it. Your early 
beliefs oppressed you, and you have escaped the 
burden by rejecting belief in God and in a future 
life. 

Let me claim the liberty of an old friend—it 


10 THE LOST FAITH. 


may be for the last time, for we shall soon both 
be away--and ask if you are sure of your ground. 
The questions are too momentous, the interests 
involved are too great and too lasting, to be risked 
on an uncertainty. You are not, indeed, sure that 
there is no God, but you are sure that no man can 
prove that there is; and you are equally certain 
that there can be no future state of suffering for 
any. Your final conclusions you have reached 
through the influence of Mr. , and you admit 


that his hold on you and on others has come largely 
through his passionate denials of the doctrine of 
future retribution. I have no doubt this is so. 
But, after all, is this decisive? Are Mr. s 


doubts and denials more to be relied on than 


the positive beliefs of as intelligent and good 
men as the world has ever seen? I do not press 
this as proof one way or the other, but it is 
something worth thinking of before | you give 
up for ever your respect for Christianity and the 


Bible. 


THE LOST FAITH. Ve 


Your letter has called up memories that will 
not down at the bidding. You remember your 
mother; you remember her life; you remember 
her death. The day after her burial we were sit- 
ting, you and I, under the old willow on the bank 
of the river—it is all before me now—and you 
told me how she died with her hand on your head, 
and how before she died you promised to meet her 
again. Was it alla delusion? Did she go out in 
final darkness? And was your promise the folly 
of childhood ? 

Will you bear with me if I recall another and 
a later scene? The days of childhood were behind 
us. We had drifted apart. You remained among 
the old home-scenes; I was making my way among 
strangers. Then one went from you who had be- 
come dearer to you than a mother. I have before 
me a letter that came to me out of the shadows of 
that bitter trial; I know you will not misjudge me 
if I quote its words now. Thus you wrote: “I 
am sure such a life cannot have ended ; the possi- 


12 THE LOST FAITH. 


bilities of it cannot yet be finished. That soul, 
with all its sweetness and beauty and brightness, 
cannot have been quenched like a spark on the 
ocean... . Her last words were, ‘I go with 
Him who has brought life and immortality to 
light, and who has opened the kingdom of heaven 


’” I would not recall these early 


to all believers. 
views and faiths unkindly. If they were wrong, 
of course you are right in parting with them; but 
is it certain they were wrong? And in giving 
them up have you found something better and 
more sure to take their place? 

One important point I presume you have not 
overlooked: whatever doubts there may be as to 
the existence of God, atheism can never be proved. 
No man can ever be sure that there is not a God; 
he may deny that the proof of divine existence 
satisfies him, but that is all he can do. Somewhere 
in the universe, after all, God may be. No man 
has explored all its recesses; none has pierced its 
limitless heights; none has threaded all its dark 


a 


THE LOST FAITH. 13 


abysses and found that in it all there is no God. 
A man must himself have the attributes of God to 
know that there is no God. And suppose I cannot 
prove that there is a God? If I live as if there 
were one and it should happen that there is not, I 
am safe; I lose nothing. But if I live as if there 
were no God and it should come to pass at last that 
there is, where am I? Of two untraveled paths, 
it is wisest to take that which is known to be 
safe. 

But suppose it to be a question of probabilities. 
Suppose you have to choose between an endless suc- 
eession of finite causes, as a man, an oak, a flower, 
a dewdrop—not one of which is adequate to its 
own existence—and one infinite, eternal self-ex- 
istent, almighty and allwise Cause of all things 
(and some such choice sooner or later you must 
make), which is the better? Which is the more 
reasonable? If you think through these questions 
at all, either you must at last admit a God or you 
must make something for yourself that will do the 


14 THE LOST FAITH. 


work of God; and the God you make must do 
what actually is done now; what he will do here- 
after, who can say? Your friend, Mr. , tells 
you that “all there is is all the God there is”— 


that “the universe is all there is or was or will be.’’ 


This is pantheistic atheism; it is a mere assertion 
without a particle of proof; and if true, it can give 
us no relief for the future, as I hope to satisfy 
you. 

By the side of this utterance of Mr. 
put the words of that king in the realm of science, 


let me 


Professor Joseph Henry. They are found in the 
last letter that he ever wrote, and may be taken as 
the final summing up of all those vast researches 
that have made his name the heritage of the world. 
They are entitled to some weight as against the 
statements of men who, if they can follow in his 
footsteps at all, must follow afar off. These are his 
words: “ After all our speculations and an attempt 
to grapple with the problem of the universe, the 


simplest conception which explains and connects 


THE LOST FAITH. 15 


the phenomena is that of the existence of one 
spiritual Being infinite in wisdom, in power and 
all divine perfections.” That is, the simplest and 
the best explanation of the facts of the universe is 
found in the existence of God. This is testimony 
accepted by the highest scientific authority both in 
this country and in Europe. I do not say that it 
proves there is a God, but it does prove that belief 
in God is consistent with the highest intellectual 
power. ‘To disbelieve is no proof of a great mind. 

Mr. 


greatest and best men of his age—a man “whose 


eulogizes Thomas Paine as one of the 


writings carry conviction to the dullest.” Now, 
Paine, though a bitter enough infidel, as we all 
know, never so parted from his reason or his rever- 


ence as to deny the existence of God. He says 


with a force that, according to Mr. » must 
“carry conviction to the dullest :’ “I know I did 
not make myself, and yet I have existence; and by 
searching into the nature of other things I find no 
other thing could make itself, and yet millions of 


16 THE LOST FAITH. 


other things exist ; therefore it is that I know by 
positive conclusions resulting from this search that 
there is a power superior to all these things, and 
that power is God.” Paine believed in God; he 
believed in a future life; he believed in the per- 


son of Christ, of whom Mr. so far takes leave 
of all historic judgment, and even of all respect- 
able infidel judgments, as to say we do not know 
that he ever existed ! 

This suggests a word in regard to your questions 
whether I have heard Mr. -and whether he 


can be fairly answered. I have never heard him 


on the subjects of which you speak, but I have 
read enough, I think, to judge him fairly. I rec- 
ognize his brilliant gifts, his wit, his rhetorical 
power, but I am surprised that one of your 
natural clearness of mind should not see that he 
deals most unfairly with the questions of religion. 
His representation of Christianity is a caricature, 
and it takes great charity not to believe it is an 
mtentional caricature. His treatment of the Script- 


THE LOST FAITH. 17 


ures is inexcusably unfair. If a Christian were 
to deal with an infidel book as Mr. deals with 
the Bible, there would be no bound to the charges 


of outrageous misrepresentation and perversion. 


His abuse of Christians and Christianity is often 
more like the raving of a madman than like the 
calm judgment of a fair-minded reasoner. What 
are we to think of a man who can sit down 
and deliberately write and send out to the world 
such words as these ?—“ Hundreds, and thousands, 
and millions, have lost their reason in contemplat- 
ing the monstrous falsehoods of Christianity ;” 
“‘Nine-tenths of the people in the penitentiaries 
are believers ;” “The orthodox Christian says that 
if he can only save his little soul, if he can barely 
squeeze into heaven,... it matters not to him 
what becomes of brother or sister, father or mother, 
wife or child. He is willing that they should burn 
if he can sing.” This is enough. But what shall 
finds 


imperfections in the Church; suppose he finds a 
2 


be said of such ravings? Suppose Mr. 


18 THE LOST FAITH. 


multitude of professed Christians that are not what 
they should be, just as Christ has given us reason 
to expect,—does that settle the real nature of Chris- 
tianity? Suppose “ nine-tenths of the people in 
the penitentiaries” were American citizens,—does 
that prove that American citizenship is a bad thing 
or make it worth while for a man to spend his life 


in denouncing our Constitution? Mr. knows 


there is a very different kind of citizen, and he 
knows that these men are in the penitentiary, not 
because they have kept the laws of their country, 
but because they have broken them. So, even if 
the monstrous assertion were true that nine-tenths 
of the occupants of the penitentiaries are Chris- 
tian professors, they are there, not on account of 
Christianity, but in spite of it. True Christianity 
never sent them there, and every honest man knows 
that. Christianity is founded on Christ, and the 
required fruit of it is holiness, rectitude with man 
and purity before God. This is a fact that any 
man who wants to know the truth can understand 


THE LOST FAITH. 19 


by an hour’s study of the teachings of Christ and 
his apostles, 


To your question whether Mr. can be an- 


swered, I say deliberately he.has been answered a 
hundred times. I do not think that in all his assaults 
on the Bible he has advanced a respectable argument 
or objection that has not been urged and answered 
again and again long before he was born. The 
Christian Church has not the least fear for herself 
from his attacks ; indeed, she understands them so 
well, and has repelled them so often, that she is 
perhaps too indifferent to anything he may say. 
The danger is not to the Church, but to those who 
want to be convinced that the Bible is not true, and 
who want to be assured that, however they may live in 
this life, they have nothing to fear in a life to come. 
Indulge me in another letter, and believe me 
Yours, truly, 
C 


1 Dye) Wid 0 Oh oped UB 


My Dear A 
upon every mind, and that Mr. 


: The two questions that press 


has shown 
again and again, with wonderful pathos, by dying 
beds and at open graves, are pressing upon his, are 
these: Is there a God? Is there a future state of 
existence? To these questions the best answer 
Mr. 
seems confident that there is no personal God, and 


has to give is, “ We do not know.” He 


“sve cannot say whether death is a wall or a door, 
the beginning or the end of a day, the spreading of 
pinions to soar or the folding for ever of wings, the 
rise or the set of a sun.” With all this uncertainty, 
he is absolutely sure that there is no future state of 
suffering for evil-doers. He does not know whether 
there is any future at all, but he does know that 


there is no future of sorrow. He is profoundly 
20 


THE LOST FAITH. 21 


ignorant as to the fact of a future, but has decisive 
knowledge as to the nature of the future, if there 
is one. “ Rather than that this doctrine of endless 
punishment should be true,” he says, “I would 
gladly see the fabric of our civilization, crumbling, 
fall to unmeaning chaos and to formless dust, where 
oblivion broods and even memory forgets.” 

has this 


preference, yet this does not’ settle the case. We 


Now, it may be quite true that Mr. 


can fully understand how any man should shrink 
from the terrible possibility of future suffering. 
Orthodoxy has no more delight in it than has in- 
fidelity. But it is not a question of preference : it 
is a question of fact; and the point I submit for 


your reflection is this—whether Mr. 


, on his 
own ground, is authorized to affirm that there is no 
future state of suffering for any. He says we do 
not know whether there is any future state. Very 
well. Then, certainly, we do not know what kind 
of a future state there may be, if there is one. If 


Mr. 


is not able to assure us that there is no 


| 22 THE LOST FAITH. 


future for us at all, he surely has not the ground to 
assure us of any kind of a future, good or bad. 


There may be a future of joy, there may be a 


future of suffering ; there may be both. Mr. 
is too good a lawyer to undertake to prove any- 
thing by mere negative evidence. He “leaves the 
dead with Nature, the mother of all,” and ‘ Na- 
ture,” as to any sure utterance upon the future, is 
as silent as are the lips of the dead themselves. 
Mr. 


You are not sure whether there is one or not. 


does not believe in a personal God. 


There may be; there may be none. If there is, 
we cannot know it. Let us see what we gain on 
either supposition. 

Suppose there is a God, though I cannot know it 
or I cannot know him. Then, clearly, I cannot 
know what he is; I cannot know what he may do. 
It is quite possible that this unknown God may be 
a God who hates what we call sin, and who will 
punish it, and who will punish it just as long as it 


stands an offence in the moral universe, whether it 


THE LOST FAITH. 23 


be in this world or in the world to come. No 
agnosticism can deny this conclusion. The darkest 
as well as the most radiant scenes that Christian 
faith brings within our view may be eternally true. 
I may be immortal, and it may be an immortality 
of joy or of sighing for me as I use this life and 
the truth that God has made known to me in this 
life. 

Let us take the other hypothesis. Suppose there 


is no God; suppose Mr. has satisfied me 
that there is no supernatural revelation, and no 
personal God to make one. Has he made it well 
for me hereafter? Has he delivered me from all 
fear for the future? Has he saved me beyond 
question from “the serpent of eternal pain”? IEf 
there is no God, does that make it certain that there 
will be no future suffering for any man? Let us 
see. We are here in a world of suffering. How 
came we here? and how did suffering come here? 
If we came without a God, who will prove that 
without a God we may not go elsewhere, and that 


24 THE LOST FAITH. 


suffering may not go with us? Here we are—by 
natural law, by evolution, by chance—as part and 
particle of the one eternal unity ; however it may 
be, we are here, and we suffer. We know what 
pain of body and pain of mind are. We have felt 
the sting of death, and no law of nature, no power 
of evolution, has ever lighted up for us the dark- 
ness of the grave. Now, the question we want 
answered is this: If “ Nature” has brought us inte 
this state where there is so much of what we call 
sin, and so much bound with it that we call suffer- 
ing, how do we know that the same “Nature” may 
not continue the same facts hereafter? Nay, what 
give us that “ Nature” is 


assurance can Mr. 
not a power that may in some future frenzy cast us 
into a state far worse than the present? Is he so 
far possessed of all the secrets of ‘ Nature” that 
he knows the time will never come when she may 
strike us with a force more terrible than any re- 
tributive judgment of God? If “ Nature” works 
now in storm and fire, in earthquake and pestilence, 


THE LOST FAITH. 25 


in disease and torture and death, in the sorrows of 
memory, the horrors of remorse and dread fore- 
bodings of coming woe, how do you know that she 
may not manifest herself thus hereafter and through 
the ages to come? 

If Nature is, as Mr. 


_ us all, there are times when she manifests her 


says, the mother of 


motherhood appallingly. And when are these 
manifestations to end and how are they to end? 
If under her regal sway we find that, as a fact, sin 
and suffering are connected here, can any ‘man 
prove that it may not be a law of “ Nature” her- 
self that sin and suffering shall be connected eter- 
nally? If in the imperial reign of “the mother 
of us all’? there are chains and scourges, prisons 
and scaffolds, thunderbolts and flames, cyclones and 
famines and ocean-grayes, will any man prove that 
somewhere in the darkness and mystery of the 
future there may not be, in the long outworking of 
this reign, something worse than a hell, worse than 


an undying worm, worse than a quenchless fire ? 


26 THE LOST FAITH. 


It is, I admit, a fearful thing to fall unprepared 
into the hands of the living God; but if I must 
choose, give me that, a thousand times, rather than 
the terrific possibilities that overhang us all if we 
are to be eternally at the disposal of a blind, inex- 
orable, soulless, merciless “ Nature.” The Judge of 
all the earth will do right; at the worst we shall 
receive no more at his hands than we deserve ; but 
no created being can tell us what we shall receive 
at the hands of an irresponsible, pitiless “ Nature” 
though she be “the mother of us all.” There is 
nothing so dark and terrible in all the woes of the 
Bible as the possibilities that Mr. 
his gospel; and there is this difference: the Bible 


offers us in 


opens wide a door of hope for all who care to enter 
itis be: 
and leaves us there. Is it worth while for any 


leads us out into the outer darkness 


man to spend his life in persuading us to make this 
exchange of despair? And is it worth our while 


—yours or mine—to make it? Truly yours, 


C 


Pein. LET; 
My Dear A 


kindly acknowledge my former communications 


: In the note in which you 


you say that, whatever Christianity may be to me, 
you cannot see it as I do; its excellences, as they 
appear to my mind, do not impress you at all, and 
as long as they do not you cannot be expected to 
accept it. I admit the conclusion: you cannot re- 
ceive as good and true what does not seem to be so. 
But does it follow that a thing is not good and 
true because you do not see it? The question still 
comes, Is the cause in the thing or in you? 

You remember the Beethoven concert we once 
attended together in B 


? To you it was an 
occasion of exquisite enjoyment; to me it was 
nothing. The difference was not in the music: it 


was in us. You have a musical taste; I have not. 
27 


28 THE LOST FAITH. 


I tried—not very sincerely, perhaps—to persuade 
you that there was nothing beautiful in it; you 
smiled, but attempted no argument. You were 
wise. You knew the music was beautiful, for you 
had experienced it; you had felt its power. If I 
chose to deny it because I had not felt it, so it must 
be ; you could only pity me. 

Now, is it not possible that there may be some- 
thing like this in religion? May it not be a reality 
—a supreme reality—though you do not see it or 
feel it? May I not know it to be real because I 
have felt its power? And if there are thousands 
and tens of thousands as intelligent men and 
women as the world has ever seen who are as ready 
to testify that they have felt the power and experi- 
enced the reality of the Christian religion as you are 
to testify that you have felt the power and know 
the sweetness of music, are you wise to dismiss its 
claims because you have not felt the force of them ? 
You must see this. I leave it to your candor. 


Christianity may be true though you have not felt 


THE LOST FAITH. 29 


its truth. A cloud of witnesses stand ready to tes- 
tify to you its truth from personal experience. 
They may not argue with you: multitudes of them 
could not argue with you; but, after all, they have 
a proof of the reality of their religion, of the 
power of Christ to satisfy and bless men, which no 
arguments in the world can shake. If all this 
were a new thing, or if the witnesses were only 
ignorant and superstitious men, you might well 
enough hesitate to receive the testimony ; but when 
you reflect that it is the accumulated testimony of 
nearly nineteen centuries, that it comes from all 
countries and all classes, from the prince on the 
throne and the beggar at his gate, from the philos- 
opher in his study and the sailor in the forecastle, 
from the statesman in the cabinet and the plough- 
man in the furrow, I submit it cannot with wisdom 
or reason be set aside. It is no answer to say that 
many great men and learned men and ploughmen 
can be brought who have had no such experience 


and give no such testimony. This is true, but it is 


~ 


30 THE LOST FAITH. 


one of the first laws of evidence that no amount 
of merely negative testimony can overthrow the 
explicit evidence of honest, intelligent, trustworthy 
witnesses. Fifty men who did not see a murder 
could not set aside the clear testimony of two who 
did see it. Few of the race have ever seen the 
moons of Mars, or even of Jupiter; this does not 
disturb the witness of the few who have: the satel- 
lites are there. 

I have just been reading—not for the first time 
—Peter Harvey’s account of his visit, with Daniel 
Webster, to John Colby. You will find it in Har- 
vey’s Reminiscences of Webster; and if you have 
not read it, it is worth your reading. Colby had 
married Webster’s oldest sister when Webster was 
a mere boy. It was in some respects a strange 
marriage. She was a godly, Christian woman, 
while Colby was a wild, reckless, ungodly man— 
“the wickedest man in the neighborhood,” Web- 
ster believed, “as far as swearing and impiety 
went.” He seems to have been the terror of Web- 


THE LOST FAITH. al 


ster’s boyhood. Singularly enough for New Eng- 
land, though a man of strong natural powers, he 
never learned to read till he was over eighty years 
of age. His wife died early, and the families 
drifted apart. Webster had not seen Colby for 
over forty years, but he heard that a great change 
had taken place with him, and he visited him to 
judge for himself. I should mar the story of the 
interview if I undertook to condense it. Let me 
give the essential parts of it in Mr. Harvey’s own 
words. Long as it is, I think you would be sorry 
to have it shorter. 

Webster and Harvey had driven to Andover, 
and were directed to Mr. Colby’s house. “The 
door was open. . . . Sitting in the middle of the 
room was a striking figure who proved to be John 
Colby. He sat facing the door, in a very comfort- 
ably furnished farmhouse room, with a little table— 
or what perhaps would be called a light-stand—be- 
fore him. Upon it was a large, old-fashioned Scott’s 
Family Bible in very large print, and, of course, a 


By THE LOST FAITH. 


heavy volume. It lay open, and he had evidently 
been reading it attentively. As we entered he took 
off his spectacles and laid them upon the page of 
the book, and looked up at us as we approached, 
Mr. Webster in front. He was a man, I should 
think, over six feet in height, and he retained in a 
wonderful degree his erect and manly form, al- 
though he was eighty-five or six years old. His 
frame was that of a once powerful, athletic man. 
His head was covered with very heavy, thick, bushy 
hair, and it was as white as wool, which added very 
much to the picturesqueness of his appearance. As 
I looked in at the door I thought I never saw a 
more striking figure. He straightened himself up, 
but said nothing till just as we appeared at the 
door, when he greeted us with— 

“ «Walk in, gentlemen.’ 

“ Mr. Webster’s first salutation was-— 

“<This is Mr. Colby—Mr. John Colby—is it 


not?” 


THE LOST FAITH. oo 


“<«That is my name, sir,’ was the reply. 

“¢T suppose you don’t know me? said Mr. 
Webster. 

“¢No, sir, I don’t know you; and I should like 
to know how you know me.’ 

““J have seen you before, Mr. Colby,’ replied 
Mr. Webster. 

“<“Seen me before! said he; ‘pray, when and 
where ?” 

““¢ Have you no recollection of me? asked Mr. 
Webster. 

““* No, sir, not the slightest ;’? and he looked by 
Mr. Webster toward me, as if trying to remember 
if he had seen me. 

“Mr. Webster remarked, 

“<¢] think you never saw this gentleman before, 
but you have seen me.’ 

“Colby put the question again, 

“«¢ When and where?” 

““¢ You married my oldest sister,’ replied Mr. 


Webster, calling her by name. 
5 


34 THE LOST FAITH. 


“¢T married your oldest sister ! exclaimed Colby. 
‘Who are you?’ 

“¢T am “little Dan,”’ was the reply. 

“Tt certainly would be impossible to describe the 
expression of wonder, astonishment and half in- 
credulity that came over Colby’s face. 

“<< You Daniel Webster ! said he; and he started 
to rise from his chair. As he did so he stammered 
out some words of surprise. ‘Is it possible that 
this is the little black Jad that used to ride the horse 
to water? Well, I cannot realize it!’ 

“Mr. Webster approached him. They embraced 
each other, and both wept. 

“Ts it possible,’ said Mr. Colby, when the embar- 
rassment of the first shock of recognition was past, 
‘that you have come up here to see me? Is this 
Daniel? Why! why!’ said he, ‘I cannot believe my 
senses. Now, sit down. I am glad—oh, I am so 
glad to see you, Daniel. I never expected to see you 
again. I don’t know what to say. I am so glad 
that my life has been spared that I might see you. 


THE LOST FAITH. 35 


Why, Daniel, I read about you and hear about you 
in all ways. Sometimes some members of the 
family come and tell us about you, and the news- 
papers tell usa great deal about you, too. Your 
name seems to be constantly in the newspapers. 
They say that you are a great man—that you are 
a famous man—and you can’t tell how delighted 
I am when I hear such things. But, Daniel, the 
time is short; you will not stay here long: I want 
to ask you one important question. You may bea 
great man: are you a good man? Are you a Chris- 
tian man? Do you love the Lord Jesus Christ? 
That is the only question that is worth asking or 
answering? Are you a Christian? You know, 
Daniel, what I have been: I have been one of the 
wickedest of men. Your poor sister, who is now 
in heaven, knows that. But the Spirit of Christ 
and of almighty God has come down and plucked 
me as a brand from the everlasting burning. I am 
here now, a monument to his grace. Oh, Daniel, I 
would not give what is contained within the covers 


36 THE LOST FAITH. 


of this book for all the honors that have been con- 
ferred upon men from the creation of the world 
until now. For what good would it do? It is all 
nothing, and less than nothing, if you are not a 
Christian, if you are not repentant. If you do not 
love the Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity and truth, 
all your worldly honors will sink to utter nothing- 
ness. Are you a Christian? Do you love Christ? 
You have not answered me.’ 

“¢ All this was said in the most earnest and even 
vehement manner. 

“¢ John Colby,’ replied Mr. Webster, ‘ you have 
asked me a very important question, and one which 
should not be answered lightly. I intend to give 
you an answer, and one that is truthful, or I will 
not give you any. I hope that I am a Christian. 
I profess to be a Christian. But, while I say that, 
I wish to add—and I say it with shame and con- 
fusion of face—that I am not such a Christian as I 
wish I were. I have lived in the world, sur- 
rounded by its honors and its temptations, and I 


THE LOST FAITH. by 


am afraid, John Colby, that I am not so good a 
Christian as I ought to be. I am afraid I have 
not your faith and your hopes; but still I hope 
and trust that [ am a Christian, and that the same 
grace which has converted you and made you an 
heir of salvation will do the same for me. I trust 
it, and I also trust, John Colby—and it will not be 
long before our summons will come—that we shall 
meet in a better world, and meet those who have 
gone before us whom we knew, and who trusted in 
that same divine free grace. It will not be long. 
You cannot tell, John Colby, how much delight it 
gave me to hear of your conversion. The hearing 
of that is what has led me here to-day. I came here 
to see with my own eyes and hear with my own 
ears the story from a man that I know and re- 
member so well. What a wicked man you used to 
be P 

“Oh, Daniel,’ exclaimed John Colby, ‘you 
don’t remember how wicked I was, how ungrateful 
I was, how unthankful I was. I never thought of 


38 THE LOST FAITH. 


God; I never cared for God; I was worse than a 
heathen. Living in a Christian land with the light 
shining all around me and the blessings of Sabbath 
teachings everywhere about me, I was worse than a 
heathen until I was arrested by the grace of Christ 
and made to see my sinfulness and to hear the voice 
of my Saviour. Now I am only waiting to go 
home to him, and to meet your sainted sister, my 
poor wife. And I wish, Daniel, that you might 
be a prayerful Christian; and I trust you are. 
Daniel,’ he added, with deep earnestness of voice, 
‘Will you pray with me?’ 

“We knelt down, and Mr. Webster offered a 
most touching prayer. As soon as he had pro- 
nounced the ‘ Amen,’ Mr. Colby followed in a most 
pathetic, stirring appeal to God. He prayed for 
the family, for me and for everybody. Then we 
rose, and he seemed to feel a serene happiness in 
having thus joined his spirit with that of Mr. 
Webster in prayer... . 


‘The brothers-in-law took an affectionate leave 


THE LOST FAITH. 39 


of each other, and we left. Mr. Webster could 
hardly restrain his tears. When we got into the 
wagon, he began to moralize : 

““¢T should like,’ said he, ‘to know what the 
enemies of religion would say to John Colby’s con- 
version. There was a man as unlikely, humanly 
speaking, to become a Christian as any man I ever 
saw. He was reckless, heedless, impious—never 
attended church, never experienced the good influ- 
ence of associating with religious people—and here 
he has been living on in that reckless way until 
he has got to be an old man, until a period of life 
when you naturally would not expect his habits to 
change, and yet he has been brought into the con- 
dition in which we have seen him to-day, a peni- 
tent, trusting, humble believer. Whatever people 
may say,’ added Mr. Webster, ‘nothing can con- 
vince me that anything short of the grace of al- 
mighty God could make sucha change as I with 
my own eyes have witnessed in the life of John 


Colby.” 


40 THE LOST FAITH. 


Mr. Colby was eighty-four years old at the time 
of his conversion. At that age he learned to read 
for the single purpose of reading the Bible, and it 
was the only book he ever did read. He lived for 
three years after this, and to the end gave the clear- 
est evidences of a change that to Mr. Webster’s 
judicial mind could be explained only by the sup- 
position of a divine interposition ; it was a divine 
reality. The last intelligible words of the once 
terrible blasphemer were, “Jesus! glory !” 

Changing the details, the experience of John 
Colby has been the experience of thousands upon 
thousands. And—I put it to you in all candor—— 
is it alla lie? Was Webster—one of the grand- 
est intellects of this or of any age—was he a 
fanatic or a fool to believe in the reality of the 
religion that John Colby had experienced? Was 
he a weakling to put his faith where John Colby 
had put his, and to trust that when the summons 
of both should come—as it soon did come—they 
might meet each other and those who had gone 


THE LOST FAITH. 41 


before them trusting in the same divine, free 
grace? 

You may criticise the Bible, you may criticise 
Christians, but, after all, there is something in 
Christianity that cannot be explained away as a 
superstition or a delusion ; there is something that 
cannot be dismissed by a scoff or with indifference. 
Somewhere and at some time it will have the final 
word, and it will be heard. I commend it to your 
honest and earnest judgment now. Try it; I ask 
no more. Settle the great questions that press on 
every heart as the Bible opens the way of settle- 
ment to you, and wait the issue. You can lose 
nothing; you may gain everything. The fact is 
as remarkable as it is familiar that no man in the 
last hour here—the hour, often, of supernal light 
—ever wanted to take back or to change his faith 
in the Man of Nazareth as the Son of God and the 
Saviour of men. When the shadows are melting 
in the great realities, and the mysteries of life are 
about to be finished and the verities of the future 


42 THE LOST FAITH. 


are to be proved, no man has yet been found to 
mourn that in the face of all difficulty and doubt 
and denial here he was a Christian. Can that, or 
anything approaching it, be said of any form of 
atheism or infidelity or unbelief? 
As ever, yours, 
C—. 


ieee ae 
My Dear A 


would end our correspondence. Your kind reply 


: I had supposed my last letter 


has gratified me more than I can express. With- 
out further words, let me take up at once the ques- 
tion that you put, I am sure, sincerely. You ask 
“What is ‘the way of settlement that the Bible 
opens to the great questions that press us abe 
The questions of supreme interest are few and 
simple. Is there a God? Is there a future exist- 
ence for us? How can that existence be made 4 
safe and satisfying one? If you are willing to 
allow any authority to the Bible at all, there can be 
no doubt as to the first two questions. There is a 
God by whom we were created and to whom we 
are responsible ; there is a future existence. Those 


two questions are settled, if the Bible can settle 
43 


44 THE LOST FAITH. 


anything. And they are settled, let me add, in 
harmony with the profoundest instincts and the 
most imperative demands of our nature. What- 
ever a few souls in their struggling dissatisfaction 
and sad unrest may persuade themselves, the great 
yearning heart of humanity will quiet itself on 
nothing less than God and immortality. Even 


your former guide, Mr. (let me hope I may 
speak of him now as only your former guide), cries 
out in the presence of the dead and before the 
awful silence of the grave, “ Immortality is a word 
that hope through all the ages has been whispering 
to love. All wish for happiness beyond this life ; 
all hope to meet again the loved and lost.” Yes, 
there are hours when the most hopeless are glad to 
turn to the hope that the Bible alone gives, when the 
bitterest rejecters of God and his word long for 
the consolation that only the rejected word affords. 

Let us turn to the other question. If, when we 
are through with this life—as we soon shall be 
through with it—we are not through with exist- 


THE LOST FAITH. 45 


ence—if there is a life beyond the present not 
measured by years or ages,—how can it be made 
worth having? Is there any way in which our 
immortality can be assured to us as an immortal 
good? After all the doubts and darkness, the 
mystery and suffering, the bitterness and disap- 
pointment, of this life, may it in any way be founc 
a great and a good thing, after all, that we have 
lived? To answer these questions we must come 
back to the old truth—the truth of your childhood. 
The “advanced thought” of our day has discoy- 
ered nothing to change the fact that men are out of 
the way, they are not what they should be. Every 
man knows this. The Bible expresses it in a very 
plain way by saying they are sinners. As such it 
deals with them ; to such alone it opens its door of 
hope. The Bible is of no use to you unless you 
are a sinner. If you call this cant, I am sorry 
for it, but I cannot help it; I cannot change 
it. The only men for whom God is dealing here 


for good, for whom he is making possible an im- 


46 THE LOST FAITH. 


mortality of honor and happiness, are the sinful. 
And is not this well for us? Does it not at once 
bring hope to you—a hope as great as it is mys- 
terious? You know that life has not been to you 
an unstained thing any more than it has been to 
any of us. To know this is to know sin, the one 
appalling fact of the universe, the one unspeakable 
woe of our being. 

In the simplest way, then, my dear A , let 


me say that the first step in your coming right with 
God, and so right with the future, is to know and 
to feel that you are wrong. The Bible closes the 
door of hope for ever on the man who comes claim- 
ing the brightness and the good of a life beyond the 
grave because he is worthy of it. These words were 
once familiar to you: “By the deeds of the law 
there shall no flesh be justified.’ Rom. iii. 20. 
Can he who is wrong make himself right? Can 
he be all he ought to be? Can he do all he ought 
todo? Can you set right all the wrong and all 
the failure of the past? Can you make the future 


THE LOST FAITH. 47 


without error? To ask these questions is to an- 
swer them to every honest conscience. 

For one who is wrong there must be the conse- 
quences of wrong, and these must be as fearful and 
as far-reaching as sin itself. “ Whatsoever a man 
soweth, that shall he also reap,” and evermore and 
everywhere the harvest is greater than the seed. 
The coming tribulation and anguish of the unsaved 
souls that do evil is a law of nature as well as of 
revelation. The wages of sin is death. You know 
this. You have felt it in its measure. You have 
seen it in the unhappiness, the misery, the woe, the 
despair and death with which sin reigns every- 
where around us. Take the brightest view of life 
that you can, and the darkness in which it ends is 
terrible. To go out of it without God is to go out 
without hope. Am I wrong in believing that you 
need no argument here, that no conviction is more 
sorrowfully intense with you than this? 

Will you go now a step farther? Standing in 


your wrong and your weakness and your unrest, 


48 THE LOST FAITH. 


with the heavy shadows of the future falling upon 
you, are you willing to draw near to the open por- 
tal of a better life? Are you willing to look up 
and read over it—“ God so loved the world that he 
gave his only-begotten Son, that whosoever believeth 
in him should not perish, but have everlasting life” ? 
John ii, 16. Are you willing to submit your fuith 
to the mystery—beyond all depth except the love 
of God—that the Son of God in our nature has 
borne our sins in his own body on the tree—that he 
has died for us, the Just for the unjust? In other 
words, are you willing to receive the kingdom of 
heaven as a little child—to be saved, if saved you 
may be, in God’s own way ? 

In a former letter I spoke of the testimony of 
Webster to the reality of the Christian religion; 
and, though it is true that Christianity does not 
depend upon the patronage of any man, it is well 
to know that greater intellects than those that 
would persuade you to reject it have bowed before 
it and found their supreme hope in it. Let me 


THE LOST FAITH. 49 


give you, then, another testimony from this greatest 
of American statesmen and jurists. It was his 
last night on earth; that life of extraordinary 
influence and honor was closing. As his family 
and friends stood around his bed his physician 
repeated the immortal hymn of Cowper: 


“There is a fountain filled with blood 
Drawn from Immanuel’s veins, 
And sinners, plunged beneath that flood, 
Lose all their guilty stains.” 


As upon the night-air died away the final stanza— 


“Then in a nobler, sweeter song 
V’ll sing thy power to save 
When this poor, lisping, stammering tongue 
Lies silent in the grave,” 


the majestic voice that had thrilled courts and 
senates, was heard in a clear thrice-repeated 
“Amen! Amen! Amen!” And so he passed, let 


us hope, to have part in that final song. Pity, 
4 


50 THE LOST FAITH. 


infinite pity, that he had not made more of that 
magnificent intellect for the Giver of it! But at 
least he was too great a man to deny the Love and 
the Sacrifice by which alone the life of the greatest 
as well as the feeblest can be saved from being 
an eternal tragedy. 

I know, my dear A——, the derision with 
which all this may be received, but my hope is 
that you have passed beyond that point of intel- 
lectual self-conceit and moral self-murder. At all 
events, this is the only ground of a safe immor- 
tality that the Bible holds out, and beyond the 
Bible there is no ground. If you ever settle safely 
the solemn questions of the future, you will settle 
them here. If you ever find the rest for which I 
know you are weary, you will find it at the cross 
and in the presence of Him who hung upon it, and 
whose words are to-day, as of old, “Come unto 
me, and I will give you rest.” 

In all this I know there is nothing new to you. 
I had nothing new to say; I wished simply to 


THE LOST FAITH. 51 


make a plea for the faith of your earlier years. It 
is easy to put it aside, but, after all, it is a faith that 
will stand. The evidence of nineteen centuries 
from millions of honest and intelligent witnesses, 
of all ranks and conditions, living and dying, to 
the power of this faith to sustain in the most 
solemn crises of life, when flesh and heart are fail- 
ing, and when the darkness and anguish and mys- 
tery of death are rocking the soul to its foundations, 
cannot wisely be dismissed as a delusion: there 
must be a reality behind it. The lights that have 
gone out from your own home and heart you were 
right in believing have “not gone out in darkness,” 
but you will not forget that as they went into purer 
light they went with Him who has brought life and 
immortality to light, who is the Resurrection and 
the Life, in whom believing, though we were dead, 
yet shall we live. 

Here I must rest. I can only commend you to 
God and to the word of his grace—to the written 
word and to the incarnate Word, to the Bible and 


52 THE LOST FAITH. 


to Christ. I am as certain as I am of my own 
existence that if you will give yourself up to the 
guidance of these you will be satisfied and you will 
be saved. If you will only take the Bible and 
follow i, you will find an assurance of its truth 
that cannot be shaken; you will find rest, for you 
will find Christ. And surely it is not too much to 
ask that in a matter of such infinite importance 
you make a fair, honest and thorough trial of that 
which no man ever yet made trial of to be dis- 
appointed. 

Yet let me not fail to impress as a final thought 
that this result of good and of peace will come only 
by the power of the Holy Spirit. It is his to take 
of the things of Christ and show them to us; 
unless he does this, we cannot see them. My last 
word of entreaty, then, is—and I would make it as 
earnestly as conviction and feeling and language 
can make it—yield to the Spirit of God. The end 
you want is too great for your own strength. You 
have proved this. You have struggled on long 


THE LOST FAITH. 53 


enough in your own plans and your own way, seek- 
ing rest, and you are as far from rest as ever. Try 
now another way. Take hold of a higher strength. 
“Ask, and ye shall receive; seek, and ye shall 
find.” I plead with you by all the memories of 
the past and by all the hopes of the future. You 
have sinned, and I would not heal the hurt slightly. 
No one knows better than you that if the Bible is 
true you have a long and dark account against you 
—if not of open and flagrant sin, yet to the Mind 
that makes no mistakes of that which is perhaps 
far worse, of calm, deliberate, persistent rejection 
of Christ and of his Spirit. It would be faithless- 
ness and cruelty to hide the fact that by all the 
verities of God you are in peril—in fearful peril. 
To stand in darkness where no light is is sad 
enough ; but when Light is come into the world 
and men stand in darkness, there is sin that seals 
its own doom. As the case is now, the very unrest 
of your soul—its dark gropings, its unsatisfied 
yearnings, its sighs of despair—all this is the liv- 


54 THE LOST FAITH. 


ing witness of your danger, the prophecy of a 
deeper gloom and woe to come. 

But as yet it is also the voice of God’s mercy ; 
it is the plea of his Spirit calling you to the only 
rest that the universe has for the erring and the 
sinful. The Spirit of God is very pitiful. Every 
thought of good is from him; every desire for a 
better life is his inspiration ; every penitent sigh is 
his breath. I believe he is not far from you; I 
believe, therefore, you are not far from the king- 
dom of heaven. Quench not the Spirit. Do not 
go down in darkness in sight of the City of 
Light. 

You remember the circumstances of our return 
from Europe in the fall of 18—. We were young 
then, but the events are still vivid in my memory, 
as they are no doubt in yours. For two days we 
were delayed in Liverpool by a fearful storm. In 
that storm the Royal Charter was coming in, hav- 
ing made successfully the voyage of the world. 
She had been signaled, and was already in the 


THE LOST FAITH. 5d 


Channel; her arrival was looked for every hour. 
Dear friends of those we were leaving were on 
board. The fires were lighted on the hearth, and 
the table was spread for the long-absent ones, and 
glad hearts were waiting impatiently to give them 
joyful welcome. But they never came; in sight 
of the harbor and of the lights of home they went 
down—the four hundred of that doomed ship. 
The next day we passed the silent wreck as we 
came out, and I am sure you thought, as I did, 
how unutterably sad and pathetic is such an end, 
to perish in sight of home. 


Our voyage, dear A , is almost over. The 


harbor is near; the lights of the eternal home are in 
sight ; the table is spread, and dear ones—yours and 
mine—are waiting there to give us glad and everlast- 
ing welcome. Do not make wreck of life and 
hope and immortality in the very sight of home. 
Yours, in the bonds of early years, 


C—. 


56 THE LOST FAITH. 


Since these letters were written, he to whom they 
were addressed has gone where human arguments 
and pleadings cannot reach him. In a moment, in 
the twinkling of an eye, he passed from the scenes 
of a busy, honored and prosperous life into the 
solemn mysteries that lie beyond our horizon. On 
his desk was found the following unfinished letter, 
written the night before his death: 


My Drar C 


the spirit and motive of your letters. I have read 


: I have not misapprehended 


them—more than once—with care and, I believe, 
with candor. When a man stands in the shadow 
of a great and awful change—and my physician 
warns me that my lifework may end suddenly—he 
is a fool who deals any other way than seriously 
and honestly with the questions you discuss. If I 
cannot say that your reasoning removes all my 
doubts, I can most sincerely say this, even though 
it may be, in your judgment, at the cost of my 
consistency: I would give the world to have your 


THE LOST FAITH. oF 


faith and hope. While I have been glad to have 
the arguments of Mr. to support my own 
faith or want of faith, I will be candid and say 
that I have not been at rest. Life has been ter- 
ribly empty and hopeless since I felt, with Professor 
Clifford, that “the Great Companion is dead.” I 
have had success, as the world goes, but what of 
it? What does it amount to? What is to be the 
end of it all? No God! No immortality! Noth- 
ing beyond this little circle whose utmost limit I 


seem to be even now touching! Is it so? 

I am writing at midnight—an hour when these 
questions often come to me with the pressure of 
despair. Oh to be a child again with a child’s 
faith, a child’s peace! My mother—” 


Here the letter ended. Did the thought of his 
mother open the door of his aching heart to his 
mother’s God and his mother’s Christ? So let us 
hope. There is a mercy that is from everlasting to 
everlasting upon them that fear God, and a right- 


58 THE LOST FAITH. 


eousness that is unto children’s children to such as 
keep his covenant. 

Lying upon the letter was the following slip, cut 
from a newspaper. It was stained apparently with 
tears, and was probably the last thing that my 
friend read. It could hardly be the expression of 
any heart to whom the “hand of mercy” was not 


already “opening the wicket-gate :” 


“?Mid the fast-falling shadows, 

Weary and worn and late, 

A timid, doubting pilgrim, 
I reach the wicket-gate. 

Where crowds have stood before me 
I stand alone to-night, 

And in the deepening darkness 
Pray for one gleam of light. 


“From the foul sloughs and marshes 
T’ve gathered many a stain; 
I’ve heard old voices calling 
From far across the plain. 
Now, in my wretched weakness, 
Fearful and sad I wait, 


THE LOST FAITH. 59 


And every refuge fails me, 
Here at the wicket-gate. 


“ And will the portals open 
To me who roamed so long 
Filthy and vile and burdened 
With this great weight of wrong? 
Hark ! a glad voice of welcome 
Bids my wild fears abate. 
Look! for a hand of mercy 
Opens the wicket-gate. 


“On, to the palace Beautiful 

And the bright room called Peace! 
Down, to the silent river, 

Where thou shalt find release! 
Up, to the radiant city, 

Where shining ones await ! 
On! for the way of glory 

Lies through the wicket-gate.” 


DIFFICULTIES OF THE BIBLE. 


DIFFICULTIES OF THE BIBLE 


AS TESTED BY 


EEE AO Wer Gi oH Ve Oe N G) Bi 


OnE has to breathe but little of the atmosphere 
of popular thought to-day to find how full it is of 
religious doubt. Parental faiths count for little. 
The beliefs of childhood, the teachings of the 
sainted dead, the hopes that once brightened the 
darkness and mysteries and griefs of life with the 
light of a cloudless future, are to multitudes no more. 
“The eclipse of faith” has come, and souls are 


* The substance of this essay was yviven as an address before 
the Bible Conference in Philadelphia in November, 1887. It 
has, however, been revised and considerably changed with 
reference to its present use.—T. S. C. 

63 


64 DIFFICULTIES OF THE BIBLE. 


drifting out upon the starless, shoreless sea of un- 
belief. They see “the spring sun shining out of 
an empty heaven to light up a soulless earth.” 
They take up the wail of despair: “We are all to 
be swept away in the final ruin of the earth.” 
This is the deep, pathetic undertone of the sigh- 
ing of a thousand hearts to-day. 

Has life anything real? Is it worth living? 
When the little play is over, and the hour’s music is 
ended, and the lights are out, and we go forth into 
the darkness of the final night—what then? Is it 
darkness for ever? or is there the light of an eter- 
nal day? Who knows? Is anything certain? 
Must nations and men and the evening-moth alike 
go down and perish for ever under the crush of an 
inexorable fate? Is there no rift in this cloud? 
Have we no anchor that will hold as the storm 
drives us on through the blinding mists and gloom 
to the eternal shore? Have we no sure word of 
promise to which we can cling when everything 
else around us and under our feet is giving way? 


DIFFICULTIES OF THE BIBLE. 65 


1s the Bible true? That is the simple but mo- 
mentous question ; it settles all other questions of 
most concern to men. ‘To it, therefore, we find the 
most intense thought of thoughtful men converging. 
That from this there should emerge questions not 
easily solved is not to be wondered at: they emerge 
in every inquiry of human thought. The only 
thing to be asked is that these questions be dealt 
with candidly and fairly. 

To many minds the Bible is still on trial; it is 
only just that in its trial those rules and principles 
shall be observed which men everywhere expect 
and demand shall be observed for themselves when 
they or their interests are to be tried. 

This is the point of this essay. It is not, 
indeed, a discussion from the highest ground of 
inspiration; it does not claim to be. It simply 
deals with a certain class—a very large class, 
however—of alleged difficulties of the Bible, and 
it appeals to the candid reader to deal with them as 


fairly and by the same rules as he would have his 
5 


66 DIFFICULTIES OF THE BIBLE. 


fellow-men deal with him in a matter of life or 
death, or of any worldly interest. 

For this object only a few of the common rules 
of evidence have been taken. It is believed, how- 
ever, that their application will cover a very large 
portion of the popular objections to the alleged in- 
consistencies and contradictions of the Bible. 

Undoubtedly, there are difficulties in the Bible ; 
the question is whether these prove that it is 
not the work and word of God. On the other 
hand, it may be suggested whether they do not 
confirm it as the work of God, for they at once 
put it in harmony with all his other works. If 
the Bible were without difficulties, it would, for us, 
be out of the line with everything else that God 
has made or done. Nature and Providence are 
full of difficulties. There is nothing in the Bible 
harder of explanation and reconciliation than are 
the facts that meet us everywhere in God’s creative 
and providential realms. If these difficulties do 


not prove that Nature and Providence are not, from 


DIFFICULTIES OF THE BIBLE. 67 


beginning to end, the works of God, they do not on 
the face of them prove that the Bible is not such. 

In dealing with the difficulties of the Scriptures, 
therefore, we have not the least idea that they will 
all be removed : difficulties will remain. The Lord 
of hosts himself is a stone of stumbling and a rock 
of offence upon which many stumble and fall and 
are broken. Isa. viii. 14,15. If a man is deter- 
mined to commit suicide, he can do it by the very 
means that God has created to preserve life—by 
fire or by water. Spiritual self-destruction is quite 
possible through the word of life itself. At the 
same time, no man has a right to put needless diffi- 
culties in the Bible or to make difficulties where 
none exist. More than this, every man is bound 
to deal as fairly at least with the Bible as he deals 
with his fellow-men in the ordinary relations of 
life. That which would give him no trouble as 
a judge upon the bench or a juror in the box 
ought not to be urged as a fatal objection to the 
Scriptures, 


68 DIFFICULTIES OF THE BIBLE. 


In testing at this time some of the difficulties of 
the Bible by the accepted rules of evidence, hardly 
more can be done than to present a few of these 
rules as applicable to these difficulties. But the 
rules are of the widest application; the solution 
of one difficulty by them is the solution of a 
hundred. 

Looking upon the Bible as a whole, we may 
refer for a moment to the familiar precept that 
every man is to be presumed innocent until he is 
proved guilty. This is emphatically true of a man 
of good general reputation. The rule would seem 
as applicable to a book as to a man. Now, the 
Bible is not a new book; it has been before the 
world for ages. It has a character. That it is on 
the whole a good book the bitterest opposers of its 
plenary inspiration not only admit, but assert. It 
is conceded that it is entitled to its name—the 
Bible, the Book. It claims to be a truthful book ; 
by every fair principle this claim must be allowed 
until it is shown to be false. Bancroft’s History 


DIFFICULTIES OF THE BIBLE. 69 


of the United States claims to bea reliable work ; 
the claim is generally admitted. If a man now 
comes forward and asserts that it is false in whole 
or in details, by universal judgment he must 
prove his assertion, and obviously his proofs must 
be stronger than the evidences of the truth of the 
history. If this is so in reference to a book that 
has not stood the test of half a century, emphat- 
ically is it true of a book whose character has 
been established through the searching scrutiny 
of friends and foes for fifteen centuries—ay, for 
twice fifteen centuries. If a man now affirms 
the Bible to be false, wholly or in part, it rests 
upon him in all fairness to prove his position, and 
his evidence must be stronger than that which sup- 
ports the book. For three thousand years a grow- 
ing mass of testimony to the truth of the Bible 
has been rolling up in the face of every objection 
that ingenuity, learning and the bitterest hostility 
could present. Account for it as we may, that is the 


fact. There is, therefore, a reasonable presumption 


70 DIFFICULTIES OF THE BIBLE. 


in its favor, and in favor of any specific statement 
that it makes. If, then, we find in it a positive 
statement in regard to any fact, and that statement 
is now confronted by another and a contradictory 
one, the two do not stand on the same level. The 
new claimant must prove his position, and to prove 
it he must disprove the truth of the Scripture 
record. It is not enough to show that his proposi- 
tion might be true if we had no other information 
on the subject: he must show that the Scripture, 
with its mass of supporting and cumulative evi- 
dence, is false; and he must support his new prop- 
osition by a body of evidence stronger than this 
manifold evidence of ages by which the Scriptures 
are sustained. 

The application of this principle is obvious, yet 
nothing is more common than its violation. An 
hypothesis with certain analogies perhaps in its 
favor, but admittedly without a solitary positive 
proof to sustain it, is put forward as an established 
truth without regard to the fact that the Bible, with 


DIFFICULTIES OF THE BIBLE. fe! 


its general character of veracity behind it, gives 
another and an entirely different account of the 
matter. We will not say this is irreverent: it is 
unfair and unreasonable. 

The character of the Bible may justly claim to 
sustain its record till it is proved false. Deal with 
it as fairly as you deal with the red-handed an- 
archist: let the book be innocent till proved guilty ; 
and if innocent, the written word, like the incar- 
nate Word, stands a true witness in all things for 
ever. Condemned, crucified, buried, it will rise 
again. It is a perilous thing to condemn the 
guiltless. 

Let us pass to another rule of law; it is this: 
“The testimony of a single witness, where there is 
no ground for suspecting either his ability or in- 
tegrity, is a sufficient legal ground for belief” 
(Starkie on Ev., i. 550). The mere silence of one 
witness or of many witnesses cannot set aside the 
clear, positive testimony of a single trustworthy 


witness. That Josephus does not mention events 


ZZ DIFFICULTIES OF THE BIBLE. 


which Moses records does not affect the truth of 
the Mosaic record, and his silence as to the Beth- 
lehem massacre—even if no reason could be sug- 
gested for it, as there can be—cannot, under this 
rule of law, affect the positive testimony of Mat- 
thew that there was such a massacre. 

The courts go farther than this. They say, “If 
a witness swear positively that he saw or heard a 
fact, and another who was present that he did not 
see or hear it, and the witnesses are equally faith- 
worthy, the affirmative witness is to be believed ” 
(Decisions of the Supreme Court of Errors of the 
State of Connnecticut, vol. vi. p. 188). In the case 
referred to in that decision the court set aside a 
verdict that had been rendered by the lower court 
on the negative testimony of eleven witnesses against 
the positive testimony of three. The principle 
recognized by that decision, and which is universally 
accepted as law, is that the negative testimony of 
witnesses present at any given transaction cannot 


set aside the positive testimony of a far less num- 


DIFFICULTIES OF THE BIBLE. 13 


ber of witnesses, or even of a single reliable wit- 
ness. 

The silence of any of the evangelists in reference 
to an incident or event at which they may have 
been present, but which possibly they may not 
have noticed or which they do not record, does not 
contradict in the least the testimony of one who 
says such an incident occurred. The fact of the 
marriage in Cana is not at all disturbed because 
John is the only witness who testifies to it. So if 
one writer states a part of an incident or of a dis- 
course which another writer omits, while the latter 
gives a part which the first omits, there is no con- 
tradiction. Matthew (xx. 20) says the mother of 
Zebedee’s children made a certain request which 
Mark (x. 35) says the children themselves made. 
But this is not inconsistent: the children united 
with the mother in the request. Matthew calls 
attention to one party; Mark, to another. Noth- 
ing can be more unreasonable than the cavil that 
stumbles at such difficulties. 


74 DIFFICULTIES OF THE BIBLE. 


The rule before us applies to that extraordinary 
doubt of modern criticism—whether the Israelites 
were ever in Egypt, because, as affirmed, the 
monuments do not record their presence nor their 
flight nor the destruction of the Egyptian host at 
the Red Sea. Now, leaving out of the argument 
the strong probability that the monuments do refer 
to their presence in Egypt, and the further proba- 
bility that the Egyptians would not be likely to 
preserve on their monuments the record of their 
own ignominy and overthrow, the objection could 
not stand for a moment in any court of justice in 
the presence of the positive testimony of the 
record to the history in Egypt—all the more as 
this testimony is sustained by an extraordinary 
weight of. incidental corroborative evidence, and 
is involved in the whole subsequent history of the 
nation. 

Grant, if you will, that there are improbabilities 
in parts of the history; still, the courts rule that 


“mere improbability can rarely supply a sufficient 


DIFFICULTIES OF THE BIBLE. 75 


ground for disbelieving direct and unexceptionable 
witnesses of the fact where there was no room for 
mistake” (Starkie, 1. 558; see also Greenleaf on 
fiv., i. 1, 14, 15). That canon, fairly applied, 
sweeps away no inconsiderable portion of the ob- 
jections to the Scripture histories. Take the great 
decisive fact of the resurrection of Christ—a fact 
that carries with it the whole Christian system and 
the verity of the whole Christian revelation. It is 
a fact of testimony—of the testimony of many 
witnesses, under a great variety of circumstances, 
at many times and places, and extending through 
so long a period as to preclude all reasonable or 
admissible supposition of “mistake.” No fact of 
ancient history can be proved by testimony if the 
resurrection of Christ cannot be. The proof stands 
by itself, positive, direct, unexceptionable as to the 
character and capacity of the witnesses. It is proof 
that the law declares cannot be set aside by “ mere 
improbability ;’ and if this fact is established, 


everything essential to Christianity is established. 


76 DIFFICULTIES OF THE BIBLE. 


The seal of the risen Christ is on the Old Testa- 
ment; his blood is on the New Testament. It is, 
throughout, the living book of the slain and liy- 
ing Lord. 

Another very important rule of law is this: “In 
cases of conflicting evidence, the first step in the 
process of inquiry must naturally and obviously be 
to ascertain whether the apparent inconsistencies and 
incongruities which it presents may not without 
violence be reconciled ” (Starkie, i. 578). “ Where 
there is an apparent inconsistency or contradiction 
in the testimony of witnesses, such construction 
shall be put upon it as to make it agree if possible, 
for perjury is not to be presumed” (6 Conn. 189). 
Nothing is more remarkable than the constant vio- 
lation of this rule by many of the critics of the 
Bible; their effort is to see, not if the testimony 
can be made to agree, but if by any possibility 
it can be forced to appear contradictory. It is 
hardly putting it too strongly to say that many 
of these efforts would not be considered re- 


DIFFICULTIES OF THE BIBLE. 77 


spectable, and would not be tolerated by the critics 
themselves, if they concerned any other book 
than the Bible and any other subject than Chris- 
tianity. 

The courts take even stronger ground on the 
obligation of harmonizing apparently conflicting 
evidence, If the elements of reconciliation are not 
found in the evidence itself, they insist on the ad- 
mission of any reasonable supposition that will ex- 
plain the difficulty. 

“Where doubt arises,” says Starkie (Hv. i. 586), 
“from circumstances of an apparently opposite and 
conflicting tendency, the first step in the natural 
order of inquiry is to ascertain whether they he 
not in reality reconcilable, especially when cireum- 
stances cannot be rejected without imputing perjury 
to a witness; for perjury is not to be presumed, 
and in the absence of all suspicion that hypothesis 
is to be adopted which consists with and reconciles 
all the circumstances which the case supplies,” 
(See also Starkie, i. 578, 582.) 


78 DIFFICULTIES OF THE BIBLE, 


Take the familiar case of the taxing when Cy- 
renius was governor of Syria. Luke 11. 2. Every- 
body knows how confidently it was asserted that 
Luke was in error because Cyrenius’ government 
of Syria was several years later than Luke makes 
it; equally, every one knows how that difficulty 
was met by the supposition, made almost a cer- 
tainty, that Cyrenius was twice governor of Syria 
—once at the time in question, and once later. 
Even if the supposition were not as probable as it 
is, if there were no other way of solving the diff- 
culty, we should be justified by the principle of law 
in assuming it rather than to assume that a witness 
as intelligent as Luke, and with his opportunities 
of knowledge and with no motive for misstatement, 
should either wilfully or carelessly have made so 
gross an error. Here the rule fits perfectly: “In 
the absence of all suspicion, that hypothesis is to be 
adopted which consists with and reconciles all the cir- 
cumstances which the case supplies.” 


In regard to certain objections to the Mosaic 


DIFFICULTIES OF THE BIBLE. 79 


record—for example, the improbability of the 
desert sustaining the host of the Israelites: we 
select this as an example of a mass of like objec- 
tions—Dean Stanley, while holding in general to 
the historic fact, says the recorded miracles do not 
meet the difficulty and we have no right to add to 
them ; for “if we have no warrant to take away, 
we have no warrant to add.” If by this he meant 
we have no right to add to the inspired word as a 
part of i what is not in it, he is quite correct; but 
if he meant, as he evidently did, that we have no 
right to make a reasonable supposition to explain 
an apparent difficulty of the word, no utterance can 
be more groundless. He might as well object that 
Moses could not possibly have led the Israelites 
through the desert forty years because no man 
could do that without sleeping, and the record 
does not say that Moses slept during all that 
time, and “we have no warrant to add” to the 
record. 

The same difficulty is urged by others from the 


80 DIFFICULTIES OF THE BIBLE. 


present barrenness of the desert, which it is con- 
tended is substantially as it was in the time of the 
Exodus. This is to be met not so much by hy- 
pothesis as by the facts—(1) that the condition of 
the desert was very different then from its condi- 
tion now. Because the country around Philadelphia 
cannot now support a tribe of Indians by hunting 
and fishing, it does not follow that it could not do 
this two hundred years ago. (2) God had under- 
taken to bring the nation out. If every miracle 
necessary to accomplish this end is not recorded, it 
does not prove that it was not wrought. As in the 
life of our Lord, so in the deliverance of Israel, 
many miracles may have been wrought of which 
no account has come down to us. 

This suggests an obvious and a very important 
consideration : facts may now be missing which were 
perfectly well known at the time of the event, but 
the record of which has not been preserved. Hence, 
if a difficulty can be removed by a reasonable sup- 


position, or even by any admissible supposition, 


DIFFICULTIES OF THE BIBLE. 81 


of a missing fact, we are entitled to make that 
supposition. 

Webster ( Works, vol. vi. p. 64) in his address to 
the jury on the celebrated trial of the Knapps for 
the murder of Captain White of Salem, Massachu- 
setts, says: “In explaining circumstances of evi- 
dence which are apparently irreconcilable or unac- 
countable, if a fact be suggested which at once 
accounts for all and reconciles all, by whomsoever 
it may be stated, it is still difficult not to believe 
that such fact is the true fact belonging to the 
case.” ‘The missing fact that was wanted in this 
case to show a motive for the murder was the steal- 
ing of a will, or the purpose to steal a will, and 
this proved the true hypothesis. 

To illustrate by a familiar incident of the Old 
Testament history. The prophets Jeremiah and 
Ezekiel foretell the fate of the last king of Judah, 
Zedekiah. Jer. xxxii.; Ezek. xii. They declare that 
he shall be taken captive by the king of Babylon, 


that he shall go to Babylon and that he shall die in 
6 


82 DIFFICULTIES OF THE BIBLE. 


Babylon; yet Ezekiel expressly says that he shall 
not see Babylon. Now, here is apparently as.gross 
a contradiction as there can be; and if our infor- 
mation stopped here, it would be impossible to rec- 
oncile it. Fortunately, however, the explanation is 
given in the history. From 2 Kings xxv. we learn 
that the king of Babylon, when Zedekiah was 
brought into his presence at Riblah, ordered his 
eyes to be put out and sent him blind to Babylon ; 
so that he saw the king of Babylon, he went to 
Babylon, he died in Babylon, and yet he never 
saw Babylon. But—and this is the point of this 
familiar case—if this unexpected and extraordinary 
fact had not been stated, how absolutely impossible 
it would have been to give any satisfactory solu- 
tion of the difficulty! It may be doubted wheth- 
er any supposition as violent as this needs to be 
made to reconcile every alleged contradiction of the 
Bible. 

A remarkable illustration of the power of a miss- 
ing fact occurs in the history of the overthrow of 


DIFFICULTIES OF THE BIBLE. 83 


Babylon itself. The Scripture account (Dan. v.) 
says that Belshazzar was king of Babylon, that he 
was in the city, engaged in a feast, at the time of 
its capture, and that he was slain. Reliable secular 
historians give the name of the king as Nabon- 
nedus or Labynetus, and state that he was not in 
the city when it was captured, that he was not 
killed, but taken prisoner, kindly treated and al- 
lowed to retire to private life. These different 
accounts were not only eagerly seized upon by 
skeptics as proofs of the error of the Scriptures, 
but even biblical scholars admitted them to be in- 
capable of reconciliation. No longer ago than 
when the writer was in the theological seminary 
that prince of biblical students, Addison Alexander, 
sail that no solution of the difficulty was known ; 
he was too wise a man to say that no solution was 
possible. Kitto, in his Cyclopedia, declared that no 
hypothesis could harmonize the accounts. Yet the 
reconciliation was perfectly simple. A cylinder of 


historic records discovered by Sir Henry Rawlinson 


84 DIFFICULTIES OF THE BIBLE. 


in the ruins of Lower Babylon showed that there 
were at this time two kings of Babylon, a father 
and a son. One was occupying a stronghold near 
the city, the other was defending the city itself; 
the latter was taken and slain, the former was 
spared. Thus, by the providential bringing to 
light of a fact buried for centuries, that which had 
seemed to be, and which had repeatedly and tri- 
umphantly been proclaimed to be, and which had 
been given up as being, an irreconcilable contradic- 
tion, was shown to be perfectly harmonious. Yet 
if the hypothesis of two kings had been suggested 
as an explanation before the discovery of the fact, 
it would have been hissed out of court by the whole 
skeptical school. 

The two accounts of the death of Judas have 
not passed out of the field of popular objection. 
Matthew (xxvii. 5) says he committed suicide; Luke 
(Acts i. 18) says he fell headlong and burst asunder. 
He does not say where he fell from or what were 


the circumstances of the fall, and it is certainly not 


DIFFICULTIES OF THE BIBLE. 85 


impossible, or even improbable, that both accounts 
are true. The traitor hung himself, possibly, on 
the verge of a precipice—the supposed spot fur- 
nishes all the conditions for this—and afterward 
(how long is not said) the rope or the limb of the 
tree gave way, and he fell, striking first on the 
rocks at the foot of the tree and then plunging 
over the precipice with the result described by 
Luke. 

The case is not without a parallel. A few weeks 
since the papers noticed the death of a gentleman 
in one of our Western States. According to one 
account, he perished in a railroad disaster ; accord- 
ing to another, he committed suicide—a contradic- 
tion almost exactly like that in the case of Judas. 
Yet there was no real discrepancy. With his wife 
and child he was on the fatal train that met its 
doom at Chatsworth. His child was killed; he 
and his wife were taken from the ruins terribly 
injured. The wife soon died ; in despair, and with 
no hope of his own life, he drew his pistol and 


86 DIFFICULTIES OF THE BIBLE. 


sent the ball through his own head. He per- 
ished in the Chatsworth disaster, and he committed 
suicide. 

The application of these principles of law—the 
admission of any reasonable hypothesis, or of an 
hypothesis that may seem improbable, if it removes 
the difficulty, the supposition of missing facts 
known at the time, but now lost—principles of con- 
stant application in our courts of justice,—releases 
at once the pressure from a large part of the objec- 
tions to the inspired record. The accounts of the 
healing of the blind men at Jericho and the resur- 
rection of Christ—two of the most difficult of full 
explanation in the New Testament—require no 
more than this. It is not hard to present reason- 
able hypotheses to meet the cases as they stand; 
and if all the facts were known to us we believe 
the harmony would be as complete and as simple 
as that of the histories of the siege and capture of 
Babylon. 

We draw the discussion to a close with the words 


DIFFICULTIES OF THE BIBLE. 87 


of the eminent American jurist and legal authority, 
Professor Greenleaf: “All that Christianity [or 
the Bible] asks of men on this subject is that 
they would be consistent with themselves, that 
they would treat its evidence as they treat the 
evidence of other things, and that they would try 
and judge its actors and witnesses as they deal with 
their fellow-men when testifying to human affairs 
and actions in human tribunals.” 

This, as we have said, is not the highest claim 
that we can make for the Bible; but if men will 20 
as far as this, and deal with the alleged contradic- 
tions of the book honestly by the common rules of 
evidence, the vast majority of all the difficulties to 
which these rules apply will disappear. In the 
mean time, if there are those that do not yield to 
present knowledge, we can afford to wait. Many 
objections once supposed to be unanswerable have 
been answered, and the process is going on. God 
is very patient, but we may be assured that He 
who just as the occasion has demanded has sum- 


88 DIFFICULTIES OF THE BIBLE. 


moned up the silent witnesses to his word from the 
valley of the Nile, from the stormy cliffs of Sinai, 
from the plains of Mesopotamia and from the sullen 
shores of the Dead Sea, will not fail in the future 
to give all the confirmation of his truth that the 
faith of his Church may need. 


Wasurinaton, D. C., 1888. 


THE END. 


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